Should Coaches Have Coaches When They’re Stuck?

I was talking to a coach recently who’d been stuck for a while.

Not incompetent.

(In fact he's a brilliant coach)

Not inexperienced.

(He's got almost as much time in the trenches as me)

Not wandering around the business wilderness eating berries and asking strangers where the clients live.

(He's pretty knowledgeable about the whole marketing 'thing')

He's been doing a LOT to build his coaching business and using all the tools he's acquired over the years but he's just… stuck.

Business has become heavy.

Content feels flat.

Outreach feels a lot harder than it should.

And the thing is, he KNOWS what he “should” be doing.

(which, as every coach knows, is practically identical to doing it)

Apart from the tiny technicality of…

…not actually DOING it. :)

And here's the nutso-crazy part.

He was already IN coaching.

As in, he's ALREADY paying for support from a coach he likes and trusts, getting clear feedback and being given specific things to go and do.

Then…

…avoiding them.

Ducking the uncomfortable bits.

Going mysteriously quiet when it's time to report back.

Reappearing later with a perfectly reasonable explanation for why this week had been unusually complicated, why life had gotten in the way and why next week was going to be MUCH better.

Same as last week.

And the week before.

I listened to all of this with no judgement or criticism, just curiosity as every good coach should.

But eventually I said…

Which made us both laugh.

But also…

…ouch.

Because underneath the joke was something worth looking at.

This guy BELIEVES in coaching.

Of course he does.

He’s a coach himself, he’s seen what coaching can do and he’s helped people make changes they weren’t making alone.

Intellectually, he’s a fully signed up card-carrying member of the 'I love coaching!' club.

Probably even owns several notebooks with words like BREAKTHROUGH written on the front. :)

But the thing is, our BEHAVIOUR has an annoying habit of telling the truth.

Because if I genuinely believe coaching helps people when they’re stuck…

…and then I get stuck…

…and I refuse to let anyone coach me…

...then what exactly am I saying?

And look, before someone gets overexcited in the comments…

NO.

I’m not saying every coach needs a coach at all times.

I just don’t believe that.

Because sometimes you’re clear.

Sometimes you’re moving.

Sometimes you genuinely don’t need another human being rooting around inside your thinking asking irritatingly accurate questions.

So when you're clear and taking action on something that's aligned with where you want to go, doing it in a way that you love and that's producing the results you hoped for then lovely, carry on.

But when you’ve been stuck for months…

When you KNOW you’re avoiding things…

When your confidence has taken a kicking…

When you keep circling the same problem over and over again…

When you’re doing the business equivalent of opening the fridge every 20 minutes hoping a strategy has appeared behind the yoghurt…

…and you STILL refuse help because you think you SHOULD be able to sort it yourself?

THAT’S interesting.

Because now there’s a gap between what you sell…

…and what you practise.

Because let's face it, you tell clients that perspective matters.

Accountability matters.

Blind spots matter.

Support matters.

That people often can’t see the picture while they’re inside the frame.

Then the moment YOU’RE inside a pattern you're struggling to escape from it's…

“Nah mate. I’ve got this.”

When the truth is, you clearly haven’t.

If you had, then you'd be making the progress you want, right?

But it's not just that not getting coached is a personal problem for you when you're stuck and struggling.

It's that it has very real consequences in terms of your ability to SELL your services to others.

Because selling coaching gets strangely awkward and weird when some part of you is quietly demonstrating that you don’t trust it enough to use it yourself.

Again…

Not because every coach needs another coach standing behind them with a clipboard going “Interesting. And how does that make you feel?”

But when you genuinely need help?

Maybe being coachable is part of being a credible coach, don't you think?

Maybe becoming the client again occasionally reminds you what vulnerability feels like from THAT side of the conversation.

Maybe it reconnects you to why this work matters in the first place.

And maybe the question isn’t…

“Should coaches have coaches?”

It’s…

Because that answer might tell you rather more than you wanted to know.

Which is, inconveniently, often where the good coaching starts ;)